


An All New Family Man

by misura



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1941057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There are some who say that new legislation concerning dream-sharing is very near," Saito says, because who else would send a limousine where a simple handwritten note or personal phone-call would have served just as well?</p><p>Dom swirls his wine. It's the good, expensive kind. "I really wouldn't know about that, Mr Saito."</p>
            </blockquote>





	An All New Family Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zoi_no_miko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoi_no_miko/gifts).



> not quite domestic family fluff, but give them a couple of years and they'll get there. maybe.

"Life as a stay-at-home dad," Arthur says, looking bemused. Looking, Dom tries so very hard _not_ to think, completely out of place.

"It suits me," he says, because Arthur won't.

Arthur's always been a terrible liar - good enough at the meaningless small talk that is very nearly a requirement in polite (and not so polite) society, but not so good when it comes to the big stuff.

"How's Eames?"

"Good," Arthur says, and then, after a beat, "I assume. We're not exactly staying in touch."

"We should do this again some time," Dom says, rising, holding out his hand. "When we're both awake."

Arthur smiles and shakes his head. "We don't live in the same world anymore, Cobb. Best keep it that way. Let it go."

 

Saito sends him a card, at Christmas - printed, not hand-written, so Dom sticks it in between his meager collection of other cards. None from Mal's family, still, but Miles has put out the word that he is once again a respectable US citizen and so a number of nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles have mercifully added him once more to their lists, their messages as impersonal as Saito's.

Dom thinks nothing of it. He always told himself, Back When, that coming back would be the hardest part, but he knew, even then, that it wasn't true.

 

He gives a handful of lectures at Quantico, of all places, because the money's good and because the goodwill's better. Looking out over a roomful of hopefuls in suits, he remembers Eames, telling him Arthur has no imagination. _A stick in the mud._

These people are not like Arthur. Eames would imagine rings around them. Ariadne - well. Like comparing a candle flame to the sun.

He tries his best all the same. An idea as a virus, a parasite that's impossible to get rid of - that image appeals to them, he can tell. It's something they can grasp. Something they can see in others.

It's a waste to try to teach them architecture, though, to explain dreaming. These are not people who will build even a modest-sized house with nothing but the force of their imagination, let alone mansions. Castles. Empires.

They thank him for his time very politely, after. A small scattering of applause.

He presses some hands, and leaves to find a limousine waiting for him outside.

 

"There are some who say that new legislation concerning dream-sharing is very near," Saito says, because who else would send a limousine where a simple handwritten note or personal phone-call would have served just as well?

Dom swirls his wine. It's the good, expensive kind. "I really wouldn't know about that, Mr Saito."

He's not used to these sorts of places anymore. He takes the kids to McDonald's, sometimes, or orders them all pizza. On most nights, he does the cooking himself. Wholesome, healthy stuff.

Saito smiles. It's a very suggestive smile, Dom thinks.

"I'm not involved with any of that," he says, even though he knows that, in Saito's world, the more you deny something, the less people will believe you.

"I am surprised nobody has yet approached you about this," Saito says. "Your services could prove ... invaluable. Once the new laws go into effect."

"That may be quite a while yet, Mr Saito," Dom says. "Say, what is this here on my plate, anyway? I didn't want to ask the waiter - it seemed a bit impolite, but I like it. Maybe I'll try making it at home some time. I'm sure Philippa and James would like it, too."

Saito smiles again and raises his own glass of wine as if saluting a worthy opponent.

A small inner voice that sounds a lot like Arthur's asks Dom what the hell he thinks he's doing.

 

Everything is on the Internet nowadays, or so it's said.

Dom doesn't go there much - he helps out the kids with a homework assignment sometimes, but Wikipedia's usually good enough for that.

It feels too limited, somehow; compared to dreaming, surfing the Internet is like reading a book. And dreaming, nowadays, feels more and more like it's a step down from real life, real people.

Someone rings his doorbell one evening, around five, just when he's about to start on dinner.

Saito.

 

Take-out Chinese with extra fortune cookies - and, well, Dom's never claimed Saito is some kind of idiot. It's not from a place he knows, which probably means it's from some place that makes the best food in the county or the entire state or something.

"You love your children very much," Saito says, when it's just the two of them and a single left-over fortune cookie. (Dom's stood firm on the 'you break it, you eat it' rule.)

"I'm not a good man to threaten, Mr Saito," Dom says. It's almost an instinctive reaction; he barely thinks about the words at all, before they come spilling out. "I don't like threats."

Saito looks nearly surprised. For all of half a second, if that long. "I don't like making threats, Mr Cobb."

"Not quite what I remember," Dom says, although that might be unfair.

Saito bows his head and reaches for the last fortune cookie. "It was merely an observation, nothing more. I believe I may have ... misjudged you. During our earlier conversation."

Where for 'misjudge', read either 'underestimate' or 'overestimate'.

"I have my family back again," Dom says. "For that, I'll always be grateful to you, Mr Saito. But don't make the mistake of assuming I still owe you anything. I don't."

"Not even friendship?" Saito asks, looking him straight in the eyes. "Are we not friends, Mr Cobb?"

Dom hasn't heard from Eames in nearly nine months - and that only if you count a half-minute phone call as 'hearing from someone'. (Dom called Arthur, after, who quietly scowled at him for a bit over the phone and then hung up, promising to 'look into it'.)

"I don't have a lot of friends anymore these days," Dom says. Nobody's asked him about Arthur yet, or Eames. Yusuf rarely operates on American soil; he's of less interest to the CIA and FBI and their ilk, but he's also less of a friend, more of a vague, casual acquaintance.

"All the more reason to value the ones you have left, is it not?" Saito asks. "An observation. Again, not a threat, I assure you."

"I get by," Dom says.

"Better a near friend than a distant neighbor," Saito says. "Wise words, Mr Cobb."

"From a fortune cookie."

 

"I don't move in those kinds of circles," Arthur says. He sounds like he's in an area with very bad reception. Possibly, he's quite nearby and unwilling to let Dom know it.

Possibly, he really _is_ half a world away. Dom's made it his business not to know those sorts of things anymore. "Do you think I can trust him?"

"You're asking me?" Arthur sounds slightly annoyed. "Hell, Cobb. You're the one who went to limbo for him. Anyone can make that call, it's you."

Dom firmly suppresses some vague desire to apologize. It's a valid question, trips to limbo or not.

"I've never heard of him going back on his word," Arthur says, after a moment. "Then again, he can be pretty ruthless when you promise him something and then fail to deliver. Doesn't like excuses. In pretty good with the crowd at Washington, although I suspect that's more about the money than anything else. Definitely part of the dream-sharing legislation lobby. Oh, and I checked out that take-out place. He owns it."

"Can't do what most people do and only get some food, huh?" Dom asks, because he remembers that thing with the airline. _It seemed neater._

"They've got good stuff," Arthur says, which is probably as close a clue to his current location as Dom is going to get. "You sure he's not just after something a little less nefarious?"

"Like what?"

"You're the one who went to limbo for him," Arthur repeats. "You tell me."

Dom considers. "You think he feels like he owes me?"

"Jesus, you're an idiot," Arthur says, and breaks the connection.

 

In the dream-sharing community, socializing wasn't really an option. It was more of an obligation, a way to make sure people weren't going to stab you in the back or sell you out.

(Obviously, it didn't always work.)

Still, Dom's come to think of socializing and making nice with people as parts of a survival strategy - one that no longer applies to him, because he's no longer a part of that world.

The kids help, too; it takes time to take care of them, keep the house clean, do the dishes, give the walls a new paint job, fix the roof - Dom doesn't _miss_ having other people around. It's not as if he sits around all day, feeling lonely.

He tries to imagine living with someone else again - someone not Mal.

He's not at all sure that he'd like it.

 

"You're a very persistent man, Mr Saito," Dom says, his tone leaving it up to the listener's interpretation whether or not that's a compliment.

"I am grown used to getting what I want, Mr Cobb." Saito smiles at him, quite comfortable.

"Whether it's a company, a piece of property or even, say, a person."

"You cannot own a person, Mr Cobb," Saito says. "But you know this, do you not?"

"You can control their actions," Dom says, "Even their minds. I'd have to say that comes pretty close, don't you think? Isn't that what you do? What you want?"

"What I want from you, Mr Cobb, has very little to do with your mind," Saito says, smiling again, amused. "As to controlling your actions - well, that would hardly be gentlemanly, would it now? You may make your own bed, Mr Cobb. And lie in it as you please - alone, or with someone else."

"This is pure Freudian bullshit," Dom says, and makes himself wake up, before Saito can tell him that doesn't make it any less true.

 

Dom remembers limbo. The second time.

_Let us be young men together once more._

He didn't exactly save Saito out of affection - at least, not affection for the man himself. Still, it's like with Arthur and Eames; you make it through these kinds of things together, it creates a bond.

Arthur and Eames are easy to define. Long-time friends. Mostly known quantities.

"I need some information," he tells Arthur, who takes being woken up in the middle of the night better than anyone Dom has ever known. Especially given that he's not alone; Dom can hear someone asking a question in the background. "Is Eames with you?"

"That's the information you need?" Arthur asks.

"No," Dom says, and lets it go.

 

The restaurant's an expensive one, which doesn't surprise Dom. The bodyguards do; he should have expected them, clearly; _would_ have expected them, if he'd kept in touch with that other world more, but the fact is that he hasn't, which is how he nearly ends up shot.

As it is, he gets away with some bruises from where he gets grabbed - before Saito spots him and barks something in Japanese.

"Mr Cobb. This is an unexpected pleasure. Please. Sit."

Dom sits. He feels severely underdressed. "Please. Dom." He's wearing the best suit he owns.

"Ah. It would appear you have reached a decision." Saito gestures to summon one of the waiters.

"I want to put down some ground rules," Dom says. "If we're going to do this."

"I am a man of business, Mr Cobb. As such, I can assure you I have made it a habit to never let my private feelings influence my business decisions - either in a positive or a negative sense. If things fail work out between us on a personal level - well, it would be a pity, but I would never be so unprofessional as to reverse what I have already done for you, or plan on doing for you."

Saito looks relaxed, calm. He's imagined this situation, Dom thinks; dreamt this conversation and all the directions it might head for, all the outcomes.

"No spoiling the kids," Dom says. "I want them to grow up like normal, regular children."

Saito keeps quiet for five, ten seconds. Waiting for the rest, Dom thinks.

There's not really anything else, though.

"Agreed," Saito says, at last, and then he grins the grin of a young man. "For the moment."


End file.
